Demise of cheques

The banks are slowly strangling the system of paying by cheque leaving a sizable number of people stranded.

They are so besotted with technology that they can’t seem to get it into their heads that there are some who, either cannot fathom it, or simply don’t want to use it.

If the older people without internet or smartphone are going to be forced to ‘‘smarten up’’ and get connected then the banks will be sentencing them to a miserable life of continual updates and technological change.

Electronic wizardry never sits still. There is always a new version of app, security fix, or hardware simply going out of date because a new OS has arisen.

Although I can see where the banks are coming from, at a personal level the relatively cheap pen and paper cheque system that has stood the test of time for literally centuries is to be replaced by an electronic gadget that takes even some intelligent people all their time and effort to master, which will cost hundreds of dollars to keep and maintain and is based on a massive weak point.

The internet according to its inventor, is broken, and prone to hacking and human error. Yet we keep loading all our private details, business information and, of course, our portals to various government departments on it.

The debacle of the last census should have given these banking officials a heads up as to what may happen. However when going forward with the bit between your teeth, history apparently means nothing.

Surely an independent common cheque clearing system connecting the paper and digital worlds and used by all the banks so that no bank had to maintain their own would make more sense.

Geoff Orchard, Ohaupo